We love this series and are so excited for you to read Five Ways to fall. In anticipation of the release date which is June 24th, Three Chicks along with 4 other blogs have an special excerpt each day to share. Today is day four of 5 Days 5 Ways!
Synopsis
Sometimes you can’t change—and sometimes you just don’t want to. Discover Ben’s side of the story in this fourth novel by the beloved, top-selling indie author of Ten Tiny Breaths,One Tiny Lie, and Four Seconds toLose.
Purple-haired, sharp-tongued Reese MacKay knows all about making the wrong choice; she’s made plenty of them in her twenty-odd-years. So when her impulsive, short-lived marriage ends in heartbreak, she decides it’s time for a change. She moves to Miami with the intention of hitting reset on her irresponsible life, and she does quite well…aside from an epically humiliating one-night stand in Cancun with a hot blond bouncer named Ben. Thank God she can get on a plane and leave that mistake behind her.
Football scholarship and frat parties with hot chicks? Part of charmer Ben Morris’s plan. Blown knee that kills any hope of a professional football career? So not part of the plan. Luckily Ben has brains to go with his knockout looks and magnetism. After three long years of balancing law school with his job as a bouncer at Penny’s Palace, he’s ready to lead a more mature life—until his first day of work, when he finds himself in the office of that crazy, hot chick he met in Cancun. The one he hasn’t stopped thinking about.
If Ben truly were a smart guy, he’d stay clear of Reese. She’s the boss’s stepdaughter and it’s been made very clear that office romances are grounds for dismissal. Plus, rumor has it she’s trouble. The only problem is, he likes trouble, especially when it’s so good-looking…
Excerpt
That rotten illness festering inside me enflames with the thought, the humiliating reality a burn that doesn’t want to subside.
“Look, Reese. I know... you’ve always had a wild streak in you, even as a little girl. These choices you’ve made since I saw you last though,” his head is shaking, “… possession of marijuana…trespassing…under-
“It’s not really that big a deal. A lot of people drink and smoke pot in high school,” I argue, adding, “I’m just the one who kept getting caught.”
“Drag racing?” He stares at me questioningly.
“Those were derby cars and that was totally blown out of proportion,” I clarify.
Jack slides his glasses off and gives his face a rough rub, like he’s exhausted. It’s a four hour drive from Miami to Jacksonville and he arrived here five hours after I called, meaning he pretty much dropped everything to come. I can’t help but wonder why he’d do that.
“At least I didn’t get knocked up,” I joke.
By the look of exasperation he shoots me, he doesn’t find that remotely funny. “I had hoped you were too smart to get into this kind of trouble.”
“I guess even smart girls can make a clusterfuck of their lives, can’t they?” I mutter, though his words sting.
Because they’re true.
There’s a long pause, where Jack’s mouth twists in thought as he regards me. “What are you going to do with yourself now, Reese? How are you going to make up for this?” When I was little, Jack always asked me for suggestions as to how I should be punished for my various childish misdemeanors. I think it was his way of getting me to agree on the outcome without looking like the harsh stepfather. I was pretty good at coming up with suitable penances and it was definitely preferable to sitting in a chair while my mother shrieked about what an embarrassment I was to her, the gin sloshing out of her martini glass with her mad hand gesticulations.
But I’m not a little kid anymore and Jack’s not asking me to come up with a suitable punishment. He’s asking me how I’m going to fix my life.
All I have for him is a defeated shrug.
Because that’s how I feel right now. Defeated. “I don’t know. Get another job, I guess.” “What about college?”
The eye roll happens before I can stop myself. Jack always hated my eye rolls. “My transcripts aren’t exactly going to woo the administrative offices.” Neither will the private school expulsion, earned when I broke into a teacher’s office and stole a midterm exam.
“Because you couldn’t do the work?” My arched brow answers him. “Because you didn’t do the work,” he answers for himself, shaking his head, his face a mask of extreme disappointment. “Is this how you want to live your life? In and out of police cars? Working minimum wage jobs? In unstable relationships?”
“Does anybody ever really want that?”
Jack’s right. I was smart. Some may say I’m still smart. But I’ve made so many wrong turns along the way, I don’t know how many right ones it will take to course-correct.
I don’t know if that’s even possible.
I sit in silence, listening to the monotonous tick-tick-tick of the second hand on the wall clock above, watching Jack as he spends an exorbitant amount of time playing with the gold Rolex on his wrist, his breaths deep and ragged. I don’t know that I can count on him. I mean, he forgot about me once. Looking at the twenty-year-old version of who he once knew, he’s probably ready to stamp “lost cause” across my forehead.
And then he settles those kind grey eyes on me. “I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I arrived but I had a long car ride up to think about it.” Folding his hands together on the table in front of him, a stern expression settles over his face. “I have a proposition. It comes with conditions though.”
A small exhale escapes me as I chew the inside of my mouth, relief and wariness dancing together. “Okay. I guess?”
“No more, Reese. Not even the harmless stuff.”
“This is my first time here in years, Jack.” Ironically, I convinced myself that meeting Jared was a turning point in my life, leaving me the sated and smiling wife who was happy hanging out at home and keeping out of trouble.
“Yes...” His eyes graze the walls of the police station room. “And yet here you are again.”
For the next section of the excerpt visit Natasha is a Book Junkie tomorrow. In case you missed any other days here is the schedule:
June 19
June 20
June 21
June 22
June 23
June 24
RELEASE DAY
Review
4.5 Star Review by Nicole Lorenzo
Reese Mackay is
heartbroken when her marriage ends. Sure it was short and impulsive and they
were young, but she thought they were happy. Now Reese is left to pick up the
pieces of her train wreck of a life. She has family issues, no job, no money,
no apartment and no idea where to even start to fix any of that. When her step
dad comes to her rescue with a job offer and a place to live in Miami, she
knows it’s time to turn her life around. But her first stop is Cancun to
celebrate her 21st birthday with her two best friends and maybe have
a fling to help her forget her ex-husband, Jared. It’s there she meets Ben, who
is no way her type and the complete opposite in every way of Jared, making him
the perfect candidate for a one night stand. But a little too much Jose Cuervo
leads to the night ending in a slightly different matter, one Reese would like
to forget ever happened.
Once in Miami, Reese gets
her act together. She finds herself really liking her job at her stepdads law
firm and is surprised that she’s actually good at it. Then Ben Morris walks
into her office and shakes things up a bit.
Ben is sure shocked to see
Reese standing in front of him on his first day at his new job. She looks different
then the purple haired, pierced, angry girl he met in Cancun. This girl is
blonde and put together, still gorgeous though and annoyed. Hooking up with
Reese is going to be next to impossible with Reese’s contempt towards him
combined with the no Fraternizing policy at work. Besides Ben is turning over a
new leaf. He’s left his wild days behind along with his former job as a bouncer
at a strip club. He still has no desire for a committed relationship though,
Ben doesn’t do relationships period. He’s purely focused on his new job as a
lawyer and helping out at his mother’s citrus farm. But being in close
proximity to Reese has him wanting to pick up where they left off in Cancun.
“….she’s all angry and fire-breathing bitchy until
her lips find you, and then you’re sure she must have a cocaine-laced tongue
because you can’t get enough of her sweet mouth.”
When Reese’s ex-husband
shows up in Miami along with his new wife, Reese feels the pain and betrayal
again as if it were just happening. With a little help from Ben Reese finds
herself making Jared jealous and she has hopes that maybe there is hope for
them again. Making Jared jealous makes Reese happier than she’s been in years
it also means spending lots of time with Ben. Spending time with Ben also has
its perks. He’s funny, good looking and obviously interested in her.
“I’m not having sex with you.”
“Oh, come on! No lies, no
commitments. No fear of love. Just the best day of your life with a nice guy
who happens to de drop dead gorgeous.”
The more time they spend
together the more that it’s apparent that there is something between Reese and
Ben. When they finally get together they both know that it’s just for fun.
Ben’s aversion to relationships and Reese being still not over Jared make it
seem impossible for there to be anything more between them. But is it? When Ben
has to deal with some serious family issues the only person he wants by his
side is Reese. He realized then that he wants to have a relationship with her.
But can Reese let go of her past with Jared and give Ben a chance?
“Now that I’ve finally admitted to
myself that I want more, I have no chance. Do I?”
Reese realizes she has
real feelings for Ben but Jared’s reappearance and sudden declaration could
ruin the chance for them to even give it a shot. Can Reese trust Ben with her
heart after all she has been through with Jared? Can she really let Jared go
and move on to be happy like she deserves without him?
“..Somewhere along the way, I let myself care
again. Maybe even love again. Unintentionally, unexpectedly, I fell for Ben.”
I loved this installment
in the Ten Tiny breaths series! Five Ways to Fall has to be my favorite since
the first book. It’s about to people who each have their separate issues that
keep them from finding their true happiness. Reese is a wild child. Her family
issues run deep and she has spent most of her young life rebelling in some sort
of way. She has a hard time trusting, especially with her heart. I really felt
for Reese and I was so happy to see her get her act together. Ben also has
family stuff that he’s dealing with which makes him realize he never wants to
settle down. I LOVED Ben! He was hilarious and had me laughing out loud for
most of the book! He seems like a cocky pig at first but he really has a sweet
side that will make you fall for him too! We get to catch up with characters
from the previous books which I loved but this could very easily be read as a
stand-alone! I really hope K.A. Tucker
continues with their story, I’d love to see what happens next with Ben and
Reese and the other characters as well!
“She’s everything I never knew I wanted. She’s
everything I never knew I could have.”
About K.A. Tucker:
Born in small-town Ontario, Kathleen published her first book at the age of six with the help of her elementary school librarian and a box of crayons. She is a voracious reader and the farthest thing from a genre-snob, loving everything from High Fantasy to Chick Lit. Kathleen currently resides in a quaint small town outside of Toronto with her husband, two beautiful girls, and an exhausting brood of four-legged creatures.
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